Winters in Croatia and Bosnia: Vision Specialists

This week we spent a lot of time in the car. We drove back and forth to Sarajevo twice. On Monday we rented a bigger car, something that would hold 5 people with luggage and drove to Sarajevo. We met with our Vision Care Specialists at the airport Monday night.

Simple Pleasures

Our specialist came from Salt Lake with gifts. They brought us some things that you can not get here. It is interesting how you miss certain things and you can not really find a good substitute for them. These simple pleasures will be rationed out to make them last longer. We had such a great time with Ike and Gloria and loved that they came to help us develop a Vision Care project to help children in Bosnia.

Early Tuesday morning we had meetings with the Red Cross and some pediatric vision care doctors at the hospital. Yes, our specialists had jet lag, but they were troopers and stepped up to the plate and went to the meetings.

Wednesday Ike and our translator, Nermin, met with the assistant Minister of Health while Gary, Gloria and I went to Zone Conference. Zone Conference is always great. They have one about every six weeks. Just when you are starting to get discouraged it is great to have one to give you the boost that you need. After the meetings we met back at the hotel, packed up and drove back to Tuzla. It is about a 2 1/2 hr drive. It is 120 kilometers one way. The road is just two lanes through a canyon. There are a lot of switch backs, but the scenery is beautiful.

Thursday morning we met with the Red Cross and more doctors at the hospital here in Tuzla. What we are trying to do is set up some early childhood vision screening in some of the smaller villages. This is still in the planning stages but we are hopeful that we can develop a project.

Ike, Gloria, Gary, Susan Tanja (Red Cross) and Nermin (Translator)

Friday we drove back to Sarajevo so our specialists could catch a plane back to Salt Lake. It takes a full day to travel from here to Salt Lake. Friday was also Bajram or Eid-al-Fitr. It is a Muslim holiday. It has been interesting to learn the customs of different countries and religions.

Saturday was spent getting the church and our apartment ready for Sunday. It has started to get cold here with the temperatures in the 40's/50's during the day and 30's in the evenings. Today was the one hour time change for us. So we got that extra hour of sleep. We do not have heat in our apartment yet. We do not have thermostats in our our apartment either. But we are told that the "central" heating will be turned on the in November. That will be good because we are having a hard time trying to figure our how to keep condensation from building up on the inside of our windows. We have found that if we leave two windows open at night that we can usually avoid having fogged windows with condensation in the morning. But neighbors use wood and coal for heating and with the smokestack right next to our window we get a bit of smoke as well.

Today marks 5 months on our mission. The time is going by quickly now that we are finally settled. You spend the first 6 months getting settled and figuring out what you are doing, The next 6 months doing what you came here to do, and the last 6 months wrapping everything up.

Tomorrow will be Coco's birthday. She is such a delight for our family. Being the only girl and adopted to boot she tends to get a bit of attention. She will be 3 years old. She requested a woodland princess party and her mother did not let her down. This was also a special week as well as they finally were able to get her a social security card. It was just last year that she was legally adopted and we were able to have her sealed to parents.

Coco and Reachel

With a birthday two days before Halloween and the fact that her parents love to dress up, I am pretty sure all her parties will be costume parties. Here she is with her Mother.

Speaking of Halloween we have received several pictures of the pumpkins which Landon grew in our rose garden. The last one we got was of Landon and Taylor dressed in their Halloween costumes ready to go to the ward party. The picture was titled "Zombies will eat your brains" . They look quite scary don't they? Dallin (not pictured here) was a horse.